


Kiss Me Where it Hurts

by Lexalicious70



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: When Stiles endures a hazing after joining the lacrosse team, he sees a side of Derek that he never knew existed, allowing him to see the werewolf in a whole new light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Me Where it Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a birthday gift for my LJ wifey, machtaholic. Bex, you were one of the first people I ever met on LJ, and since 2007, you’ve been there for me through everything, from laughter to tears, and I want you to know how much I love you. You’re the best, honey, and I hope you enjoy this.

Kiss Me Where it Hurts  
By NeptuneRising70 (aka Lexalicious70)

In that scarlet hoodie, it’s like he’s Little Red Riding Hood and the irony isn’t lost on Derek, but Stiles’ gait is different than usual—it’s like he’s running in a crouch, and even from a distance, Derek can smell his shame. He watches the kid cut through his section of the woods all the time, usually in the company of Scott McCall, the stubborn newly-turned werewolf that had been a thorn in Derek’s side since it had happened, and now, as Derek stepped out from behind a copse of trees to follow Stiles, he found himself cursing McCall’s name once again.

_Why the hell do I care what’s going on with him? I’ve got more important things to worry about than his teenage angst!_

Despite his inner monologue, however, Derek found himself moving silently through the trees until he was only inches from Stiles, watching his skinny shoulder blades moving under his hoodie.

  
“Stiles.”

“Oh, my God!” Stiles turned and threw his hands in the air as he stumbled, nearly falling over an upraised root in the ground behind him. Despite the mild temperature, he had the hoodie’s hood pulled up, the frayed strings drawn tightly so that it made ridges in the material at his forehead and the sides of his face. “Seriously, can you not just make yourself known like a normal human being?”

Derek gave him a dark, long glare, and Stiles nodded.

“Right. Never mind.” He turned to leave and Derek grabbed his elbow. Stiles yelled like a puppy that had been accidentally stepped on and jerked away. This time he did fall, landing on his rear end, his teeth clacking together, and Derek winced, his regret turning to annoyance.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” He asked, and then he noticed that the hood of Stiles hoodie had loosened and fallen back a bit, and that he could see skin on the side of the kid’s head that looked red and raw. “What happened?” He hauled Stiles to his feet and yanked the hood back, and Stiles hissed in pain.

  
“Sonofa—knock it off!” He batted at Derek’s hands, and Derek let go of the kid when he realized that those pinkish-red patches were visible all over his head and that his hair had been cropped close to his skull in a military cut that nearly left him bald.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?” Derek asked, and Stiles yanked the hood back over his head.

“Can I just skip the explanation and you can sing “Beauty School Dropout” to me instead? Because it’s late and I need to get home before my dad kills me deader than I already am.”

“What—” Derek’s nostrils flared as he scented the kid and under the shame were other smells.

The smells of other boys, as obvious to Derek as handprints on his skin. Stiles looked away.

“You didn’t do this to yourself, Stiles.” He pushed the hood back again and observed the pattern of the razor’s path. “I know you never sit still, but even you could hold your head steady for a razor.” Derek’s dark eyes flicked over the raw patches. “These were made by you struggling.”

“That’s an interesting deduction, Sherlock Howls, now get your hands off me!” Stiles shook himself free.

“Who did this?”

“Don’t you have better things to do than to creep around the woods and stalk people?”

“Not at the moment. Now answer my question.”

“It was just a prank, all right? It’s no big deal. I’ll live!”

“Right. Come with me.” Derek wrapped a big a hand around Stiles’ upper arm and turned him, heading back toward the Hale house. Stiles stumbled and jogged to keep up.  
“Are you kidnapping me? Because you could at least leave a note outlining your demands. Dad’s a public servant and he doesn’t make too much money, but there’s probably room for negotiation—”

“Shut up, Stiles.” Derek ducked around trees and they crossed the dry creek bed ten minutes later until the burned-out wreck of the Hale house was in view. They went up the rickety, blackened porch, and Stiles tried to dig his heels in.

“Uh, what are we doing? Because I’m already beyond grounded and you didn’t even buy me dinner first—”

“Don’t you ever shut up?” Derek took him inside and plopped him down in an easy chair that was permeated with a smoky smell. Stiles looked around the place and folded his arms across his lean chest.

“Early American Mangled. Interesting.” He muttered, and then he sat up as Derek came back into the room with a pink plastic tub. Stiles started to get up and Derek gave him a glare that pinned him to the chair.

“Uh . . . what are you . . .”

Derek pulled down Stiles’ hood and ran his fingertips over the shaved scalp, and Stiles tried not to gasp as the skin there tingled and filled with sensation. He cleared his throat and tried to bring his voice down to a register that humans could hear.

But this is Derek he’d be able to hear it anyway . . .

“Who did this?” Derek asked as he wrung out a cool washcloth and dabbed at the sore patches where the razor had touched skin. Stiles winced and then his eyes widened at the unexpected gentle touch. He hadn’t thought the hulking man capable of it.

“It was a hazing.” Stiles admitted, caught off guard by the treatment. Derek’s big hands stroked where the cloth wasn’t touching, assessing the damage, but Stiles’ skin prickled and went hypersensitive wherever Derek’s fingers brushed and probed.

“A hazing . . . by who?”

“I made the lacrosse team . . . like, fiftieth string or something, and the seniors caught me in the locker room after the first practice this afternoon. They always pick the smallest one—guess I should have been on the lookout. Ah!” He ducked his head as the cloth dabbed over the worst of the scrapes. There was a pause, and then Stiles’ nostrils twitched as something that smelled like mint and earth filled his nostrils and Derek’s fingers brushed over his aching scalp again, but something cool covered the scrapes and eased the pain on contact.

“Just something that will take the sting away.” Derek said, and Stiles rolled his eyes upward, trying to watch and ignore the stirring in his body that the touches were causing.  
“Ah. Uhm—why, exactly, are you helping me?”

Derek set the salve and basin aside before he lifted a shoulder.

“Slow Monday.”

“Okay . . .” Stiles drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair and then tried not to tense as Derek’s hand brushed over his scalp again, his blunt fingers awakening nerves that Stiles didn’t even know were there.

“Did it hurt?” Derek’s deep was hypnotic somehow and Stiles felt his body relax as the memories stirred—stepping out of the shower and into the waiting hands of four seniors, who dragged him back in and pinned him, rough hands pushing him against the wall, pinning him there, his chin cupped with a rough and callused hand, keeping his head still, his skinny, naked form thrashing.

_Hold him!_

The steady buzz of the clippers, the metal scraping against his skin, his dark brown hair falling to the wet tile, some of it drifting down to land on his bare feet.

The bigger boys laughing, slapping his cheeks, nudging their knees into his ass.

_You yell for Finstock and we’ll shave your pubes off and take pictures for the team Facebook!_

His inability to fight back, his fear, his shame. He closed his eyes, and Derek’s hands dropped down onto his shoulders.

“You’re stronger than you think, Stiles. You’re already stronger because you’re not like them. You have compassion . . . that alone makes you better than them—even if you don’t believe it.”

“How does that make me strong? And I’m not, Derek—look at me!” Stiles jumped to his feet and faced the bigger man. “Look at me!”

“I am. And I don’t see you what you do when you look in the mirror. I see everything you can’t because of my abilities . . . Scott sees it too, but he saw it a long time ago, even before Peter turned him. Your loyalty—you’d do anything for the people you care about, and one day, that’s going to be a huge advantage.”

“One day?” Stiles shook his head. “One day isn’t going to help me go home tonight, Derek. One day isn’t going to help me explain to my dad why it looks like I went to the Salon De Krueger for a haircut, or why he’s not going to see me on the lacrosse field all season! Do you know how many players have to actually be seriously maimed or killed before I get to play?”

“I know it’s important to you.” Derek took a step forward, reminding himself how young Stiles was—the exact reason that his hands wouldn’t know the rest of Stiles’ body for another year or so. He had sinned enough for ten thousand lifetimes already. “But it won’t always be, and I want you to remember what I’ve told you today.”

Stiles lifted his chin, his eyes bright in the fading sunlight that streamed through the gaps of crooked boards of the house, turning them into molten amber.  
“When? When won’t it be?”

Derek took two more steps until he was toe to toe with the smaller boy. Stiles watched, his pale throat working, and Derek willed his hands not to shake as they cradled Stiles’ fragile skull. He lowered his head and kissed Stiles just above his right eyebrow, and the sensations flowed out over the area in a wild shudder and through his body until his toes were wiggling inside his beat-up sneakers. Before he could react, Derek was stepping back, the suggestion of a smile playing around that mouth that had been the source of a thousand sweaty dreams for Stiles since they’d met.

“When you understand how important you are to people—when you discover where your strengths lie. Until then, well . . .” Derek lifted a shoulder. “Scott has my protection, and you’re important to him.”

“Protection by association, huh?” Stiles wanted to touch the skin that Derek had kissed to make sure his lips hadn’t scored it. “Do I have to sign anything? Because I think it’s too late to find a notary and I doubt anyone would want to come out to Casa De Fuego anyway—” Stiles tried to rein in his mouth, which bolted like a half-tame horse on a good day, and thunder was brewing in Derek’s stern brow again. “Go home, Stiles.” He finished in a faint tone, and Derek nodded.

“Go home, Stiles.”

“Right. Going.” Stiles tugged on the hem of his hoodie. “So . . . thanks for helping and everything.” He jogged across the room and down the porch steps. The last of the day’s light was fading fast and he lit out west, toward home. He looked back only once to see Derek watching him, his shadow long and dark on the forest floor that had been encroaching on the house for the last decade or so.

_You’ll understand when you discover where your strengths lie._

Derek’s form, filling the doorway of the house, making him feel not as small, not as afraid.

“And what if my strength lies with you?” Stiles whispered to himself as he crossed the dry creek bed and vanished from Derek’s sight. Derek watched until he could no longer pick up the sounds of Stiles’ sneakers crunching through the brittle fall leaves, and he lowered his head whispering into the darkness that settled in around him and the Hale house.

“Then when that day comes, you’ll have strength enough for all of us.”

Fin


End file.
